


I would spread the cloths under your feet

by Siria



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M, community:mcsmooch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-08-19
Updated: 2008-08-19
Packaged: 2017-10-03 20:37:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siria/pseuds/Siria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Teyla is as skilled at weaving as she is terrible at cooking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I would spread the cloths under your feet

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Rsharpe, who wanted blanket hogging. This is something along those lines. :) Thanks to Cate for reading it through for me.

Teyla is as skilled at weaving as she is terrible at cooking. Her tuttleroot stew is always over-spiced, her keefa noodles undercooked, her attempts at reproducing dishes from Earth traumatic enough to almost make Rodney swear off cheese for life; but when she wraps the backstrap loom around her, dogged frustration vanishes as her small hands work warp into weft so deftly that Rodney almost can't keep up with what she's doing. Teyla recreates traditional Athosian designs, spins new ones into being that refract the world around her: geometric patterns that mimic the cracked-glass lines of Ancient windows, Lantean sunlight captured in colourful Athosian wool.

Rodney doesn't know how she has the time for it, or the patience to sit like that—the still centre at the heart of constantly moving threads—but Teyla is an old hand at carving out her preferred place in this world, and on the evening of the day when faraway Athos is spinning its way into all the possibilities of a new year, Teyla hands Rodney a bulky package. It's wrapped in tissue paper scrounged from who knows where and tied up elaborately with string, so much so that Rodney almost regrets cutting open the knot with his penknife.

He peels back the paper to reveal fold upon fold of finely woven cloth—she's made a blanket for him, and it's beautiful. Rodney tells her as much, words stuttering, unable to tear his eyes from the colours of it, a desert sunrise of amber and red and old gold, unable to stop himself from stroking it though the calluses of his palms catch against the delicate weave.

"I didn't get you anything—I didn't know I—" he blurts out when he looks up at her, feeling ashamed at how his hands are buried in such welcome warmth while Teyla's palms rest empty in her lap. It feels like every Christmas, birthday, anniversary he'd let go awry—worse, because this is Teyla smiling at him, with patience and affection written plain in every line of her face.

"That you have taken pleasure in it is the only reward one can ask for, when one gives a gift at the renewal of the year," Teyla tells him, her voice gentle. She covers his hands with one of her own, matching callus to callus with skin that's been roughened by fighting and by work, by the labour that went into creating this for him.

"Thank you," Rodney manages eventually, hoping that's enough for—hoping that's enough. He carries the blanket with him straight back to his quarters, not tucked under his arm but balanced as gingerly in his hands as if he were carrying a ZPM: because he's carrying precious hours of Teyla's time, because he feels oddly as if he has to guard this with a care fit to match the warmth with which it was made.

He can clear out a drawer for it, he thinks—use it for quieter evenings when he's working on the sofa and feels like a nap, and having one right now doesn't seem like such a bad idea, in fact... But when he opens the door to his quarters, Rodney finds that John's already had that idea—paperwork lies scattered on the floor next to a lax hand, stocking feet hanging off the end of the sofa, and John's breath whistles softly on each exhale.

Rodney rolls his eyes—idiotic, reckless, haphazard... Keller's not cleared John yet for anything more strenuous than propping himself up in bed with two pillows instead of one, and here he is trying to do battle with all the bureaucratic insanity of the SGC. As appropriate as it is that madness should be pitted against madness, Rodney thinks, then stops and sighs... No.

Rodney stoops to rearrange John on the narrow couch, carefully propping up his bad knee and sticking a cushion under his head so that John won't be complaining of a crick in his neck when he wakes. He wraps Teyla's blanket carefully around John, shaking it out into loose folds that he tucks in at shoulders and secures under John's feet; one foot twitches slightly at that, though Rodney is as careful as he can be.

He strokes a careful hand down the length of John's side, feeling the fabric soft under his palm, the swift shiver of muscles as something in John relaxes at Rodney's touch. There's something in that thought to make Rodney flush, and pause, and then lean in to press a quick, dry-mouthed kiss to John's temple. John, all unconscious, turns his head towards Rodney just a little, a noise like a question in the back of his throat, and Rodney isn't sure if the way his own heart turns over is because he's startled or not.

Rodney sits on the floor with his computer open on his lap after that, but he doesn't get much work done. He sits, and looks at his hands lax on the keyboard, at John's face calm in sleep, and he thinks: on Athos, it's the renewal of the year; on Atlantis, hands can weave affection from threads that do not break. Teyla gave a gift to him, and he realises that what she gave him is not something that a person is ever meant to keep: it exists only in the giving, in the folds of a blanket spread wide to encompass both. When Rodney shivers, it's not from the winter's chill; when Rodney shivers it's because he thinks _when he wakes, I'll kiss him. I will_.


End file.
